BlockTalks x Umbrella Network AMA Transcript!
Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!
We recently hosted an AMA with Umbrella Network, on January 14th at 06.00 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Sam Kim, Partner at Umbrella Network so here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.
Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks
Q1. Could you please introduce Umbrella Network to our community in layman’s term?
Ans — In layman’s terms? hahaha. so often, projects confuse the hell out of all of us. So I hope i can explain simple and clearly.
In short, Umbrella is on a mission to securely bring all of the world’s data on chain.
The key is that we don’t want our developer partners to have to compromise between quality / freshness of the data vs security. We do this using our L2 Merkle Tree where we can write thousands of pieces of data on chain while using Proof of Stake rather than Proof of Authority.
Q2. What are the advantages of Umbrella Network to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?
Ans — Current oracle solutions require you to compromise between security of the data or freshness / liveliness of the data. With Umbrella you can have both. We use multiple data sources so that you aren’t at risk of data manipulation at the source as we’ve seen in so many recent flash loan + oracle hacks.
We also use DPOS as I mentioned earlier so that there is an economic incentive and disincentive layer unlike the alternative.
And finally, with our merkle tree, we have low cost data which ultimately means we can provide more data and more types of data. So we’re able to meet the needs of emerging blockchain solutions in options, indexes, synthetics, etc.
Q3. What are the major milestones Umbrella Network achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?
Ans —Do date, most of our achivements are in the product area. We are a product driven company where I am the only person who doesn’t write code everyday.
Actually, we did add a couple of writers last week.
So, we managed to get our Alpha out. We about to launch our testnet. We signed a bunch of partners who we’ll be announcing shortly and are working to integrate them over the next couple of weeks.
But really, putting a great team together is for me the greatest achievement to date. Excellent developers who love what we do. And many of them have worked with me before. In fact this is the third project together for some of them.
Questions Asked on Twitter For Umbrella Network Team!
Q1. 66.7% of UMB tokens allocated to the community. Isn’t this amount too much to be allocated to the community alone? Or of what benefits do you think allocating such huge amount to the community be to your project?
Ans — Interesting way to phrase it. I guess it might seem overly generous to some of you out there. But we do this for a couple of reasons. First, I think it’s critical that we not have a centralized entity at the heart of our decentralized world. And so, I and the team are doing the best we can to keep the ownership in your hands.
Second, I believe in the power of a fully engaged community. One who really feels agency and ownership over the product and ecosystem.
And so, we’re allocating approximately 10% to token buyers, 10% to developers on the system and 10% to validators. Another 37% will be in the form of rewards who provide services in staking, governance.
We expect the community to evangelize, support with marketing, BD, product testing in markets all over the world from Uganda to Vietnam and Chile.
Q2. Recently Umbrella Network has announced its association with Hedget, could you explain to us what are the benefits that both of you will begin to enjoy with this association and in the near future you plan to partner with another decentralized protocol?
Ans —So, we believe strongly in the future of decentralized options markets. And so we invested in provided options data like implied volatility, skew, gamma and more. Hedget is the first partner who is using the data so they can accurately and efficiently price options.
This will undoubtedly be the first of many partnerships in this market. We’re seeing a lot of innovation here and we’ll play a critical role in it.
Q3. How will the Umbrella ensure the accuracy of the data obtained at the collection and methodological level? How can the latest Umbrella update help you better integrate DEFI projects and get accurate external data?
Ans — So, we ensure the accuracy by not over relying on any single data provider. We use multiple data providers for every data feed. We go through a process of sanitizing that data by making sure they are consistent with one another.
Then we use our economic incentive layer via Proof of Stake consensus to ensure the data is transferred accurately.
For DeFi projects, we’re offering data that was previously unavailable. Middle and long tail of the crypto market on Uniswap is not represented by oracles today. Indexes, options, etc.
Q4. Umbrella Network recently partnered with Genesis Volatility (GVol), a leading crypto options analytics platform, to provide options that were not previously available.
My Question is, can you please explain, what option is meant?
Ans —Options are a type of financial instrument that allows you to make a bet on the price movement. So if you think BTC is going to be 100K next month, you can buy an options contract rather than buy BTC and hold it.
Genesis Volatility is working with us to make the data necessary so decentralized applications can accurate price that options contract. So if you make that bet with me about BTC hitting $100K, how much should I charge you for making that bet?
Q5. How do you encourage new developers and teams to use Umbrella and create their own Oracles? What real data and API can Umbrella connect to a smart contract?
Ans —That’s a really interesting question. We’re currently working with established data providers for everything from cryptocurrency pair prices to fiat Fx rates, equities, futures, commodities and real world events.
However, we recently started engaging with alternative data providers ranging from publisher ratings firms to digital advertising metrics providers.
We’re able to do this because we can work with any API feed, run through consensus and make available on chain.
So if you have access to data that somebody might want to buy on chain, come speak with us.
Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to Umbrella Network Team!!
Q1. What is your strategy for building a strong community? Do you agree that the power of the community will lead your project to develop globally? What services do you provide to the community?
Ans —Seems like we’re both in agreement that a community is tremendously valuable. I’ve built global companies and know just how hard and expensive it can be for a project to take that on by itself.
So, we’re going to launch an ambassador program soon. And it’s going to be a fun program.
The goal is to mobilize an international community that represents the diversity of crypto — geographically, ethnically and in the types of businesses.
We want validators from around the world, developers, and stakers. As for services, stay tuned. Join our TG and we’ll update as soon as this is finished. But there will be support.
Q2. Why are you ussing the name of Umbrella for your project? It seems interesting.
Ans — We call ourselves Umbrella Network because we believe an oracle should not just focus on moving data from source to on chain. An oracle has a responsibility to ensure the quality, security and accuracy of that data. So an umbrella protects us through a network that holds it up. And for us, that network are stakers, validators and projects.
Q3. I want to learn more about Umbrella ; but the information is very small;the community is relatively empty and less; what strategy does Umbrella team have to develop the community and maintain long-term user?
Ans — Thanks for this question. And we do not hide from this fact.
We are a product driven company, so until last Friday, I was the only person doing operations, finance, bd, fundraising, blah blah blah.
But that is changing now. We are producing content rapidly as we speak here. Our new website is launching tomorrow.
And this is only our 4th AMA while 2 were in Vietnam. But we have a packed schedule of AMAs
So thank you for your patience. But I believe it was right to wait until our product was more developed and ready to be launched before I asked you to spend your valuable time reading, following and engaging with us.
At the same time, I want you to know that we listen to you guys very carefully. Our tokenonomics is undergoing some small tweaks based on community feedback we received after we released our firtst proposal.
Q4. Can You tell about Your Governance Model? What are the main Benefits for #Farmer & #Staker on the platform?
Ans —Decentralized governance is important. That’s why I brought on Adam Levi from DAOstalk as an advisor. We’ll be working together on this.
Umbrella runs on a delegated proof of stake system. So as token holders, you can stake your tokens with the validator that best represents your ideas, economic goals, language, geography, etc. They will represent you in governance as well as be the conduit by which you receive your rewards and your share of the user fees we pay out.
Q5. Does the DeFi Ecosystem need interoperability? How will Umbrella Network ensure interoperability?
Ans — I believe though we’re still in a very Ethereumcentric world, we will see adoption in other chains. And thus interoperability will be important. And so we plan on supporting a number of chains ranging from DOT, Solana, Cardano, binance and more.
Here are some important links of UMB Network 👇
🌎 Website: https://www.umb.network/
📱Twitter: https://twitter.com/umbnetwork
📢 Telegram: https://t.me/umbrellanet
